The Samoa Times. Editor: G.P. Brown. FRIDAY, September 1, 1922. Scenery.

Samoanische Zeitung, Volume 22, Issue 35, 1 September 1922, Page 4

The Samoa Times. Editor: G.P. Brown. FRIDAY, September 1, 1922. Scenery.

A weak point (or, it may be, a strong point) about Science is that the casual student of some of its dicta never can be sure of his acquired standards. To-day's alleged basic facts are to-morrow's alleged paralogisms. Here in Samoa we still believe that the earth is round and that it rolls incessantly, but there "are" alleged philosophers who contend that the earth is flat and that its movements are not in accord with received ideas. "Where (scientific) doctors differ, who shall decide ?" We leave the problem to any of our readers who may be disposed to grapple with it, and for to-day content ourselves with a reference to Professor W, H. Hobbs's latest book, "Earth Evolution and its Facial Expression." From a London reviewer's comments it would seem that the professor gives in this book a clear and useful summary of the evidence which has accumulated against the view that "this earth was once a fluid haze of light," in fact, the nebular hypothesis. It is now difficult to believe that the interior of the earth is a molten, super-heated mass, squeezing out some of its contents in the form of lava as it contracts. Even the conception of a subteranean zone of flow between the outer crust and the central core has many critics. But it is to be doubted if such couceptions of cosmogony are so sacrosanct as the author supposes ; he would find, for example, if he were to consult the recent lectures of Professor Jeans, that the older conceptions are now handled in a very free way. His own view, in favour of which he adduces many interesting arguments from geology and the phenomena earthquakes, is that the earth is shrinking, aud, in the process, changing from a spheroid, a

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configuration of maximum cubical capacity, towards a tetrahedou, a configuration with the lowest ratio of contents to surface. He rejects almost with contempt the theory that the disintregation of radioactive substances compensates for the loss of heat by radiation, He believes that the distribution of the fauna and flora disproves the relative permanence of the great oceans, and that the biological doctrine of mutations has made it possible to conceive of evolution as having been very rapid. He is unwilling to assign any. great age to the earth and quotes with apparent approval au estimate limiting it to under 24 million years. It is plain, therefore, that this positive as opposed to his critical views are unlikely to receive general acceptance.